Flossie dissipates, leaves little damage in Hawaii

HONOLULU (AP) – A tropical storm that rolled through Hawaii Monday and early Tuesday dissipated, leaving little damage and no reports of deaths or major injuries.

Flossie was classified as a tropical storm but then weakened into a depression Monday afternoon. Weather officials said Tuesday that it no longer has any real organization or well-defined center.

Flash flood watches were still in effect on Oahu and Kauai in the western part of the state, but by midmorning in downtown Honolulu, skies were gray with streaks of blue and scattered rain.

Utility crews were working to restore power to parts of Maui, where about 500 households scattered across the island were still without electricity. Fire poles and electrical lines came down, cutting power to some customers from Waiehu to Nahiku, Maui Electric officials said.

Maui Electric spokeswoman Kaui Awai-Dickson said power was expected to be restored later Tuesday for a majority of customers.

The outages caused disruptions in water service in Haiku, where wells were not running, Maui County officials said.

Earlier Monday night, lightning strikes knocked out power to the entire island of Molokai for less than an hour, while the Big Island and Maui saw separate outages affecting about 6,500 customers, utility officials said. Another outage affected 4,000 customers on Maui, but most were restored early Tuesday morning.

Awai-Dickson said the outages were caused by lightning strikes to electrical equipment and fallen trees.

Carolyn Sluyter, spokeswoman for the Hawaii Department of Transportation, said Kahului Airport had a brief power outage that caused a couple flight delays, but airports statewide remained open.

She said airlines were working to reschedule flights that had been canceled in and out of the state during the storm.

Shelly Kunishige, spokeswoman for Hawaii State Civil Defense, said the agency did not receive any reports of major damage except to an emergency siren on Maui that was knocked over.

Kunishige said the siren was already scheduled for regular maintenance, including retrofitting.

“It was basically knocked over,” she said.

Haleakala National Park, the widely popular volcano destination on Maui, reopened Tuesday morning with officials cautioning that visitors might be delayed on trails and roads as crews cleared small tree branches and rocks.

Many state parks also reopened, though some parks in remote areas of the Big Island, Maui and Kauai stayed closed because of debris, flooded roads and other reasons.

Maui County officials said there were two reports of buildings being hit by lightning, but neither caused injuries or a fire. One strike at a home in Kahului bore a 10-inch hole through the roof and the back of the two-story house, causing $1,000 in damage.